Harmonious Emptiness

Chakras in Tao, Buddhism, Khemetics, Yoga http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/18869-chakras-in-tao-buddhism-khemetics-yoga/page__p__265619__fromsearch__1entry265619"

I'd say the Indian systems are a close reflection to the earlier ancient Egyptian systems, but there's not a lot of the system available to study save for everything which came after and has essentially the same principles (chakras, kundalini, astral travel, etc.)-- just while we're on the topic (I started a thread relating to this but it didn't get too far..).

I dunno, learn everything and then use what works? to put an elephant in a nutshell. Either way, some definite consistencies are patience, practice, determination, discipline, purity, moral conduct, accurately assessing progress, with a side of love and selfless service.

Well said I think this is pretty much what defines the word "religion" for me, and why I avoid applying the term to paths that I follow. However, the term is tied up with my encounters with Abrahamic traditions, and especially the negative sides of them which inevitably stand out in front of the heart of the traditions.

I'm coming to the perspective that there is a magical and a moral side Wu Wei. The magical one follows the rhythms of Tao . The moral, with perhaps magical results, being to get things without grasping for them, without taking them, and to make things happen without forcing people; that acting with greed and related motivations puts us off the Wu Wei path. Blofields "Taoist Immortals" defines it this way. This makes sense when most of the discussions of Wu Wei involve how things are made to happen or obtained.

This has been an area of keen interest on my part recently as well. Where I'm at right now is pretty much taking a middle stance on the matter, that much can be attained by prana cultivation, utilizing the same energy that we put towards sex to energize different energy zones. It seems that the majority of Taoist "Immortals" and, from what I'm reading in "The Yoga of Boganathar" also Vedic Yogi Immortals, trained themselves in this manner. Buddhist Enlightenment seems to be something different, though each side might say that whoever attains one also attains the other, or that they will attain both but the other will not. There are also different influences on types of Buddhism, like Shinto in Japan, Taoism in China, and pre-existing shamanism and beliefs in Tibet. There are definitely Masters in Taoism and scriptures in Buddhism that say the energy work is unnecessary to attain Samadhi and Awakening. Personally, I'm of the view that even Shakyamuni tried Yogic methods before realizing his Truth, so they can be experimented with to develop discipline and health while not veering off the middle path or being obsessed with sexual vitality, since the vitality is more useful when used towards higher states of Emptiness and Harmony. I'm not sure where that puts me on the map but that's where I'm swimmin' right now.

I see killing the Buddha to be destroying the super ego of our attainment. Once you see yourself as a Buddha then you are not one. The Diamond Sutra speaks at length about this.

Awesome link! I found this especially interesting: [following horse-stance or chi kung training] "Whether you bring your feet together in an ordinary way, or perform “Chi Focusing at Dan Tian”, remain standing upright in a totally relaxed manner with your arms hanging comfortably at your sides. Then think of nothing and do nothing for 5 to 10 minutes. This thinking of nothing and doing nothing is most important. If you relaxed sufficiently, you will find yourself swaying gently due to your internal chi flow. This is called in Shaolin Kungfu in Chinese (Cantonese pronounciation) as Yew Foong Pai Lau, or “Flowing Breeze and Swaying Willows”, sometimes read in classics but seldom understood by the uninitiated. “Flowing Breeze and Swaying Willows” is one of the secrets in Shaolin Kungfu. As far as I know, I am the first person to explain it in public. If you do not perform “Flowing Breeze and Swaying Tree” after horse-riding stance or any chi kung exercise, you would lose more than half the benefits. It is this “Flowing Breeze and Swaying Willows” that generates the internal force in the horse-riding training, without which it becomes merely physical exercise."

I like the suggestions above. When you have this positive state, use the compassion to wish all your merit from it be given to others. In line with this vehicle, when you have pain, wish that it will pay for the negative karma of yourself and others (all or specific people). This is known to be very powerful for some Native Americans as well who will endure intense suffering in hopes that the energy is transmuted into healing power for a loved one. Needless to say, wishing all of your merit for everyone else will only replenish the well if this selflessness is truly sincere. Blessings . The feelings of serenity will inevitably pass eventually (this is why Muslims pray 5 times a day, I presume). Practice Wu Wei -- translated often as actionless action, but really meaning something to the effect of attaining without grasping in a state of greed, covetousness, profiteering. Allowing things to happen in their time, thus flowing with the stream, over the rocks, rather than pushing at the rocks or destroying the banks to get through another channel (unless another channel was the natural "watercourse way" the way you wu wei). When we attribute these successes to our personality we partake in egotism (really super-egotism) which means that, in reality, we have not achieved anything to be impressed with whatsoever :lol:

I enjoyed Rich Dad Poor Dad. There was some obvious zen influence to his attitude and suggestions, imo. Someone was reading it at an old job and lent it to me. It got me into a few similar books which provided a healthier view of money and success. Think And Grow Rich, Nepolian Hill, did the most in destroying fears of the paper devil. Especially mentioning that you can help a lot more people when you're rich than when you're poor. I highly recommend it.

I think another manifestation of these attitudes is the extreme-conservative/objectivist mentality that business and capital owners, and the rich in general are more deserving of governmental respect than the every day workers. They don't consider that the reason they worked so hard to get there was because its more fulfilling, more creative, and more lucrative than the menial stuff. In other words, the menial jobs are the HARD JOBS. Any job where I got promoted: the job got EASIER, and they usually promoted me because they knew I was so sick of the the HARD shit that I was about to find something else. Things might fall apart if there was no organizational heads, but those heads are rarely there because they deserve to be. They usually got there by playing ruthless politics and stepping on more deserving people in the process. Then these people and their kids think they're entitled to a bigger and better share than everyone else, while really they're living off the backs of the real contributors who do all the dirty work that makes the economy turn. If the powerful really believed that the hardest worker deserves the most, they would be sitting around awaiting whatever was left over when the day was done.

This is helpful. I've been doing Shaking the Tree to unblock the joints before doing Five Treasures but I never knew about the breathing part. This makes sense for cleaning them out even better, right down to the "marrow." I also did a warm up of just twisting side to side and pulling harder at each side to make the hands slap the butt, hips, and kidneys. From reading another post I found that this loosens up stagnant jing. Looking forward to getting more out of these...

The Book of Balance and Harmony (translated by Cleary) seems to be a compilation of books from Complete Reality Taoism, sort of like a Complete Reality bible. There are a fair bit of question and answer style chapters where jargon is explained. The back section has Taoist Songs which read like poems. There is comparisons between Tao, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Also explanations on the process of how (not always how-to) turn Chi into Shen. So Ex99, it seems that Liu I Ming maybe did not see alchemical directions as suggesting physical processes, but as only spiritual and consciousness processes. Do you know if Liu I Ming also practiced internal alchemy in the way that most Taoists do, involving the 3 dantiens and the 5 organs? Or would you also say that Liu I Ming's practice did not involve physical processes. If the later is the case, it would seem that he had his own style which was quite different to all other forms of Taoist Alchemy. I agree that Awakening to the Tao has little to zero mention of dantiens and the 5 organs, but would be surprised if he had no practices relating to their cultivation and application in his alchemical development. edit: typo

Watching movies about slavery, or the deceit and genocide towards Native Americans serves to remind me that this is the nature of remorselessly greedy people. The attitudes are still around. They never stopped until they had no choice or until they got what they wanted. This is the system. It really doesn't care who you are so long as it wants something. The middle classes don't see this face of the beast and so they're easily duped to let it feed off of society while it claims moral superiority. One only need look at the fact that Americans couldn't feed a slave for less than 5 dollars a day, and yet American companies don't even pay that much in off shore sweat shop labour (Haitian Disney employees were fighting to raise their wage to 50 cents a day when Aristide got kidnapped and forced to resign by foreign governments, according to an A&E documentary on Aristide). We think these actions came from antiquated values and beliefs. The same thing is still going on. They're just smart enough to keep it out of sight out of mind now. Once the power to exploit is threatened again, we'll see how much it cares who needs to be removed. The game is and always will be played. These people know the power game better than Sun Tzu. It's way more advanced now with developments in crowd psychology, mass communication controls, propaganda and image manipulation. Every power move is nothing but a chess game. Few people realize what's happened to them even when the game is over.

Thanks for the responses, and translation! Do you know much about the Book of Balance and Harmony? I was reading the introduction again yesterday and noticed that it said a large portion of the book is from Understanding Reality. For some reason I thought Understanding Reality was from a different school, but this would suggest that Liu I Ming's teaching is also in The Book of Balance and Harmony. I thought this book was much older than 18th century. So a few questions then Is the whole of Understanding Reality in this book? I did not see any mention of the original authors in the Cleary translation. Do you know who is being quoted? I found the use of I Ching for explaning internal alchemy in it to be especially unique. Was this from Liu I Ming? Are there other English-translated works that do this? For example "take the yang from water trigram (kidneys) to fill the middle of the fire (heart) trigram." H E

Perhaps, as you said, you're just jealous because she knows people who are more advanced. If so, you should go just find that impulse and abolish it. If you don't know how to appreciate these qualities in people you will be at a loss in personal development. Learn to see how some of these people are more advanced than you. You'll maybe see how they are not perfect, and in doing so realize that both of you have work to do before you've attained any levels of perfection. There's nowhere to go without knowing that there's somewhere to go, you know what I mean? I'm not invincible to the same failing but I know it is of utmost importance to destroy such impulses. I'm just seeing this to be a possible dojo. You're committed to personal cultivation, so... Plus, you'll really know where your girlfriend is coming from, and, if needed be able to disagree using references that put you both on the same page. You can lead her spiritually if you feel you need to, but you'll know where she's at. Your connection will be stronger, or you'll know something you're only suspicious of -- that she's loony

Yeah, Kom Ombo was just the site where the temple is. The Dantien is the 2nd, which harmonizes the 1st with the other 5. Since the 1st is the source of the Nile, this sounds to me like in Taoism when they talk about the source of Jing/vital fluid/some say sexual fluid. It's usually said that the 1st chakra is at the base of the spine but I think that was just being non-descriptive so as not to freak out cultural fear of sex and to keep it from being seen as this big sexual thing which I don't think it really is since these practices all warn that sexual lust will misdirect your energy focus.

((edit: not to say anything dogmatic about opening the Kundalini spontaneously, or that it should never be done without developing all the other centers. -- I suppose that would be an exception for comparative discussions. Any words on the difference it makes after and before the Kundalini is awakened? What was also interesting was that the top chakra eventually enables astral travel. Taoism and Buddhism speak about similar things, yet there are a lot of how-tos on astral travel while your still alive. There is also astral traveling in Dragon Gate Taoism if I'm not mistaken. No wonder the pyramids were lined up as if they were made for ETs, eh? Was the Giza pyramid was like a glactic telephone?

That's the one. The author actually seems to have some background, as she guides people through the chakra meditations at the different temples. I wouldn't be the one to prove this, there seems to be some knowledge there. It seemed obvious to me that The Egyptians had different gods associated with the chakras since they had gods associated with pretty much everything, similar in some way to how Taoism associates different elements to everything. It would be really interesting to hear an expansion on their views of chakras since they may have been influential on other systems around the world, but also since it seems their architecture and other things were influenced by them, not to mention the seemingly superhuman abilities (not exclusive to the Khemetics) that they seemed to have had. Not that I would get that far without total life commitment and perhaps some divine favoritism. So the dantien harmonizes the the upper chakras with Aswan: the "Source of the Nile." By this description and what I know of Microcosmic Orbit, the bottom chakra is really the Pool of Elixer/Jing. Zhi Gang Sha has a lotus hand posture over the 4th chakra to open it. Someone on TTB mentioned a method to open the Heart Chakra which involved dual cultivation with another dedicated practitioner. I haven't heard any Taoist practices to open the 3rd and 5th Chakra, which Khemetics associated with power, healing, and magical potential. The 5th is associated with communication. Looking at the way the pyramids were built, we can see the focus on building up the bases before getting to the top. I've only heard mention of the 3 dantiens in Taoism. Maybe there was something in Opening The Dragon Gate about these other 2? Would opening these chakras be done similar to activating the dantien? Is it a matter of energizing the Chakra, or opening? Makes me think of Chi Kung, retaining and releasing, purifying movements. I've heard of using rocks to energize the chakras. Does anyone know anything about that?

I've been to a similar festival, though it was just 3 days. I think it had some affiliation with The Rainbow People, or at least there were a lot of Rainbow People who attended and helped with the set up. The 3 days was beautiful, with a community feeling I'd never experienced with more than a houseful of people. You might want to test the waters first with a Summer Solstice Festival coming up this month, since it's only 3 days (or longer if you help with set-up which I recommend for the extra camping time with chill people). The no alcohol thing is great because it keeps the ego out of things and everyone gets along like (as I said) nowhere I've been before. The different workshops and such are not mandatory. Some of them require you to be sober to take part. 3 weeks is a long time. You might have to latch on to your girlfriend if you feel the characters are too much. There will be people like you there too, but if you can't accept that people are using one of the only means they have to a transformative spiritual experience (ie entheogens) then you'll find yourself feeling very judgmental and you won't have a good time. If you can say "that's their trip, their way of discovery, if it's getting them somewhere they want to be then that's fine with me. I have my way, people might think their way is better, but I'm going to practice in the way that I've found to be progressive for me. It's good that we can all do our thing. I'm not going to impinge on them, and I'm looking for guidance from them so I'm just gon' do my thing and enjoy the freedom." If that's an attitude that you can really hold, then you'll be okay. Plus, it's a great place where you can practice and no one will look at you like you're a freak. Just roll with it if you turn around and see some long haired naked guy following your tai chi movements edit: oh, any maybe bring some cheap incense that smells too strongly and stick them in the ground near the porto-potties.

I appreciate your vote of confidence

Thanks for the tip. Hopefully I can get my hands on one soon .

are there English equivalents for these terms you might share?

It's just a travel website, but for the most part it seems to line up with what I've read of these gods, except that the 3rd eye is usually called the Eye of Horus and is why Horus usually has a cobra(kundalini serpent) over his 3rd eye. Perhaps there was other significance with The Sphinx who I'm pretty sure was related to Isis/Bastet. Also, from what I have read, the crown chakra leads up to union with a divine mother, though I'm not sure if it's specifically Isis, Nut, or others. Again, I'm looking for more information on this side of it all, so please, let me know what you've got! (edit: do the temples not match the chakras? or the gods don't match? How do you understand the relationships to be? From what I've seen, you seem to be the most familiar with Egyptian spirituality here, so I'm looking forward to your contribution to the topic!) The website is basically a travel thing (not the most reliable, but it seemed pretty close at least for a jumping off point. There's so much complexity and interrelatedness with Khemetic symbology that it's hard to be sure what is totally off or just coming from another aspect of the teaching). maybe paste the two parts together: http://www.freewebs.com/ spiritualegypt/thechakrasofthenile.htm

The important thing is that people use entheogens (so nice to use better words than drug s) to feel liberated spiritually and sometimes physically. If we can do this without entheogens then we have achieved the desired effect. If I don't have my own personal jet, it's great to be able to buy a ticket. At the same time, just because we can, doesn't mean it's a free for all, fly to France every weekend. There has to be a really good reason to do so. If you fly to much, you might not have the money to get back . And, you might not be able to fly at all. Not to mention, with the airline we have available, we don't have much control of where that ticket will take us. I want my own "personal jet". Flying whenever I want on entheogen airlines will make this more difficult. I'll leave the metaphor there.. One thing I did read from a full-blood Native American Shaman, which cleared up some misconceptions, is that marijuana was never in the peace pipe since it will "confuse your visions." I'm pretty sure it was used as a local anaesthetic and maybe for other "issues," but not as a means to knowledge. Other traditions disagree, and *maybe* some other tribes too, but I've seen this same attitude towards the sweet leaf two or three times by Native American shamans. However, the natural methods by which Native Americans achieve visions are very serious and difficult, so a quick fixer upper like weed wouldn't have much place when you've been testing your limits to such an extreme extent.